


colors

by lemon_meringue



Series: tangible things [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Break Up, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, no officer i've never seen a beta before in my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 11:00:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20619935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_meringue/pseuds/lemon_meringue
Summary: There’s a cerulean blue thumb with little gold flecks, a shamrock green index finger chipped at the top. A middle and ring finger, baby pink and pastel yellow, sharp and soft and rough and loving. There’s a little nail in boysenberry,forgiving, and Beck thinks if it were to sink through fabric and skin and bones, it would sear right through the center of his heart.i.e. the break-up-and-implied-potential-make-up one where Peter paints his left-hand fingernails and Beck can’t not think about him.cw: mentions of domestic violence, basically, plus also read the tags+ Translation toRussianby the very lovely morranna <3





	colors

**Author's Note:**

> This… wasn’t supposed to happen. I had a headcanon, you see, a Vague Idea, that wouldn’t leave me alone while I was trying to work on my wips, so I tried to write out the concept, and then this happened. 
> 
> Got a bad case of purple prose but sometimes you just gotta write that shit, you know? 
> 
> Probably definitely easily the angstiest thing I’ve ever written in my life. Angst. Feelings.

Peter would paint his nails, but only on his left hand. 

Each finger would be a different color, and he never switched the colors around. It was always the same. The same color on each nail, and whenever they chipped or grew too long, he would add new coats of polish or wipe off all the paint and start over.

His thumb was always blue. Cerulean, with little gold flecks that would shimmer, the kind of polish that little kids would paint messily onto their toy dolls' hands, but it just sort of… worked, on Peter. Seemed right. He’d own it, possess it, refuse to see it as anything other than a valued part of himself. So confident in his own existence but he had so much to learn. 

His index finger was always green. Shamrock, the color of grass, if all the bushes and trees and shrubs and ground plants melted in a wash that soaked up and drowned the rest of the world. That one always managing to be chipped some way or another, the tip of the paint scraped or peeling off from being scratched against different surfaces as he used his hands.

His middle finger was pink. Baby, pretty, like salmon and blush and coral all mixed together but lighter, so light and soft and sweet. It was ironic, and cute, and so, _ so _Peter. 

His ring finger was yellow. Pale, pastel yellow, like vanilla sunflower, like honey smeared thin on a window and glistening in the morning. Happy, and pure, and innocent. 

His pinky was dark purple. Like boysenberry, or mulberry; sangria, like grape jam. Small and dark and deep and elegant._ Like Peter_.

Beck can’t stop seeing them.

He can't stop seeing the colors. _Peter's _colors. 

The blue. With the flecks of gold. The color of the ocean when he flies to Malta for a business trip, slipping in and out of focus for the entire week, staring at the water outside as it fucking _ sparkles _ in the light, and not daring to dare to enjoy it. It’s the blue there, reminding him of Peter’s thumb, how they would play thumb wars when they were bored out of their minds.

How Peter smashed it in a door and broke it, and Beck had to take him to the hospital, and when all was over and done with, the kid was more upset about the freshly repaired paint chipping again than the broken bone.

That blue, reminding Quentin of when Peter would slip his thumb past Beck’s lips and the older man would lick and kiss it, a promise of what his tongue and mouth would do to Peter later; how the boy would blush like no tomorrow and stare, eyes hooded, and swallow hard.

The green. That green, in the leaves plastered to his windshield when he leaves his car parked under a tree in the rain, water droplets shimmering in the late afternoon light, reminding him of Peter’s index finger. His pointer finger, how he would poke Beck in the side, just under his ribs, when he wanted attention.

The way he’d excitedly try to get Beck to look at the dog he spotted on the other side of the street. The way he’d use just his index fingers to circle and prod at the hard pink buds on his chest whenever Beck would tell him to tease himself.

The pink. That pink, the color of a balloon whipping in the wind, drawing attention to a sign for a department store sale, reminding Beck of Peter’s middle finger. How he’d rest his chin in his palm, and absently slide his hand up his face to tiredly wipe out the corner of his eye with that finger, distracted, exhausted, not even aware that Quentin was always watching him, always committing every little detail to memory.

There, reminding Beck how that was the finger Peter would use when Quentin told him to open himself up, to show off a little, to get himself ready— the finger that would push slowly inside, never big enough or the perfect angle to slake until Beck would guide Peter’s hand away and replace it with his own, drawing out those sweet sounds.

There, reminding him of the way Peter would flip him off whenever he’d make a genuinely harmless joke or ill-timed innuendo at Peter’s expense.

The yellow. Yellow in the dress of a stranger passing by, reminding Beck of Peter’s ring finger. 

The finger Peter would always have to lick drops of syrup off of, the finger he’d touch and pick at whenever he got nervous, the finger with a shiny, simple gold ring at the base, a ring that Beck put there, a ring that was sitting on Beck’s kitchen counter now, mocking him, challenging him to even touch it.

Yellow like the finger that was supposed to hold Peter’s promise to Beck, to mirror Beck’s promise to Peter.

The purple. _ Oh_, that purple. The color of Quentin’s wine in a dark living room— because ironically enough, moping feels wrong in the light— where the deep red reflects so slightly off Beck’s blue sweater (Peter’s favorite sweater to steal, because he said it held the smell of Quentin the longest), reminding him of Peter’s pinky.

Peter’s little finger; the finger he’d stick out so dramatically whenever he drank chocolate milk or apple juice from the fine china at his aunt’s house. The only finger he’d never crack his knuckles of, because it always hurt more than it satisfied. 

The finger he’d loop with Beck’s and lock, staring into Quentin’s eyes, breathing each other’s air, and promise, making promises that Beck was helpless to accept, helpless to reply to with promises of his own.

Quentin can’t cope.

He can’t let go, he can’t move on. He can’t pretend that everything he sees doesn’t remind him of Peter, that every person who passes him isn’t completely insignificant compared to that boy, that everywhere he goes isn’t infinitely less beautiful and infinitely less compelling and that the entire world isn’t infinitely less _worth it_, isn't entirely _worthless_ without Peter by his side.

He can’t pretend that every color he sees doesn’t remind him of every single thing he loves and hates about the only person on the whole fucking planet who matters to him.

He cuts his palm when he’s dicing pears and all he can think about it Peter’s cheek, the gash across his porcelain skin, the split where Beck’s ring _(that stupid fucking gold ring)_ tore into him, how the blood met in the middle of the laceration and trickled down his face in one slow stream, how his eyes were wide and gleaming, and he just stared at the coffee table forced into his line of sight from how his head snapped to the side, when Beck _hit him_.

Quentin knocks his knee against that coffee table and later there’s a bruise, purple and green and gross, and he doesn’t even bother lying to himself.

Doesn’t bother denying that all he sees when he looks at it are the ugly, dark things that littered Peter’s stomach and ribs and thighs, the colors of eggplants and raisins and olives and Merlot and cherry and dijon and granola, marking up something so soft and supple and precious, because hate fucking was supposed to be cathartic, and they were supposed to break and realize how much they care and cry and hold each other and apologize and make it better by making love—

and they didn’t. Peter fit everything that was indisputably his and his alone into a backpack and a duffel bag and he left. He left without saying goodbye, as Beck sat at the table with a half empty bottle of gin, not watching, and he didn’t say goodbye either, just stared at the table and when the door closed, not with a slam, not with any kind of force or even pertinacious insouciance, but quiet and cautious and maddeningly gentle, that was when he cried.

A sudden sob and a slow, steady, unyielding stream of tears, and then he shattered the bottle of gin against the wall, and didn’t bother to pick up the glass before he grabbed the unopened brandy.

Beck drinks beer, but only in the dark, when he doesn’t have to look at the bottle and see the color of Peter’s eyes when the sun is at his sides, shining straight through the brown and lighting up his irises like pots of gold.

He’s drunk when he hits his face on the side of the wall, but he’s sober when he does it again. And again. It’s satisfying, like a pain that’s supposed to be there, like a well-deserved, hard earned punishment— but it doesn’t feel as right as when Peter’s fist had cracked against his jaw, the boy’s entire body shaking with adrenaline, with anger, with hurt, with fear. With _ fear_.

_ With hate_.

Beck eats breakfast and lunch because his coworkers invite him to and he’s so, _ so _ good at playing along, at fooling everyone else, at playing the part— but he skips dinner, swapping solid food for the cheapest whiskey he can find and all the wine he wants, because if he keeps his beard and stubble trimmed and clean and he bikes to work every day, then no one at his office or at the liquor store will guess how close to dead he is.

Sometimes he dreams of Peter in the moonlight, the planes of milky, unblemished skin and smooth curves, soft and light and radiating warmth, kissing Beck on the lips and the chest, Beck running fingers through bedraggled chocolate colored hair, the way Peter moves with him, sylphlike and perfect and completely uninhibited and alive and beautiful.

Sometimes he dreams about the way Peter had cried, how he’d screamed that Beck was a liar, how he’d screamed that he hated him. The way his chest rose and fell so fast, his entire body trembling, shaking, his left hand with the painted nails coming out defensively when Quentin tried to step closer to him.

Sometimes Beck doesn’t dream at all. 

He wonders which of the three is worse. 

He’s staring at the bottle of vodka on the counter, biting his tongue because he wants to chug it and the only thing stopping him is knowing that Peter would blame himself if Beck wound up dead from alcohol poisoning and he _ can’t _ , he just _ can’t _ bring that on the kid, can’t hurt him any more. 

God, he wants to drink it though. 

He wants to drown in it. 

He picks it up and takes a sip, and keeps taking more until he sees the glass still shattered in the corner of the kitchen from the night that Peter left, and he _ hurts _ all the way through his body, and collapses onto the floor, dropping the bottle of vodka clumsily when he’s already fallen on his ass, his hands unable to grasp, to hold on, to keep close.

The glass doesn’t break, but it rolls away and Beck watches the clear liquid inside gushing slowly out until there’s not enough left to reach the neck of the bottle.

He can see the door from here. He stares at it, and stares at it, and stares at it, and eventually, he passes out. 

When he wakes up, there are feather light touches to his cheek and a gentle voice in his ear, someone whispering, lips on his temple, a hand on his chest. 

“It’s ok,” the voice says. “I’m here. I’m here now.”

Beck smiles and even he isn’t sure what the emotions are behind it— genuine, unfiltered joy, or ruefulness, or sarcasm, or hate, or guilt or relief— and lifts his chin, gazing up and finding caramel eyes looking down at him. He drops his head again, and he can see the hand on his chest, gripping slightly at the blue sweater, acting like a barrier between them, and Beck’s not sure whether the boy is holding back Quentin or himself. 

There are fingers pressed into the cotton and the fuzz, over a damp spot. Probably from the vodka.

There’s a cerulean blue thumb with little gold flecks, a shamrock green index finger chipped at the top. A middle and ring finger, baby pink and pastel yellow, sharp and soft and rough and loving. There’s a little nail in boysenberry, _ forgiving_, and Beck thinks if it were to sink through fabric and skin and bones, it would sear right through the center of his heart.

“I’m here now,” the voice repeats. 

Beck gets up eventually. He showers and puts the blue sweater in the laundry basket, and when he comes back into the kitchen, he’s entirely unsurprised to find the empty bottles and bottles that weren’t empty before all in bags on the floor, waiting to be recycled. 

The last of the vodka is emptied down the drain and the spill is cleaned up, every shard of the glass in the corner is gone. 

“You kept my ring,” the boy says. He’s holding it between the cerulean and the shamrock, carefully, inspecting it, appraising.

Beck's ears and eyes go blank, numb and useless for a moment. Not the ring, not _the _ring, but my ring, _my_ ring, because it _still is his ring_. And then:

_ Of course, _Quentin wants to say.

_ It hasn’t been that long. _

_ I missed you. _

_ I missed you so fucking much, baby. _

_ I’m so sorry._

_ I’m so fucking sorry. _

_ Please talk to me. _

_Please stay. _

_Please let us work this out. _

_Please, please, please. _

_ Don’t leave again. _

_ Don’t ever leave again. _

_ Please don’t leave me again, I love you. _

_ I love you._

_I love you._

_ I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo— _

Peter looks at Beck, then, and there’s no scar on his cheek, and Quentin’s never seen that hoodie before but the fraying drawstring and loose thread at the bottom hem say Peter’s already broken it in, and even across the room he smells like honeysuckle and pomegranate and fresh shampoo and a little like gin and _ home_, and he’s waiting for Beck to say something.

“I kept it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been saving this mango and I’m gonna eat the whole thing on Saturday


End file.
